"When the Los Angeles County Museum of Art launched its first Art & Technology program back in 1967, the idea of artists and technologists collaborating was radical—and the art world wasn’t quite ready."

GUESTS

Patrick McCray, Professor of History, University of California, Santa Barbara
John Craig Freeman, Public Artist, Professor of New Media Art, Emerson College
Brian Mullins, Founder, CEO, DAQRI, Los Angeles, California

From the Archives: Art and Technology at LACMA, 1967–1971 on view March 2015 - October 25, 2015.

Crystal Willow slideshow presentation click here.

Photo: Crystal Willow, Rest in light Rockne Krebs, December 2011  © Lars Hasselblad Torres

"After physicists first demonstrated the optical laser in May 1960, scientists and engineers started thinking of what they could do with it. So did artists."   (For complete article by Patrick McCray click here.)

"Another notable effort was by Rockne Krebs, an American artist who made laser-based sculptures for several years starting in the late 1960's." 

"Over time, Krebs expanded his focus from small-scale efforts using lasers in rooms and galleries to ambitious outdoor installations that incorporated building and landscapes into the work. Harking back – unconsciously, most likely – to Garmire’s experiments, his piece The Green Hypotenuse (1983) used a 7 mile-long laser beam that stretched from the observatory on Mt. Wilson down to Caltech."

"A key difference between Garmire’s “lasergrams” and installations made by artists like Krebs is the latter’s ephemeral nature. When the laser was turned off, the art disappeared. All that’s left are the sketches that went into its planning – “drawings for sculpture you can walk through” according to the title for one Krebs’ exhibit...." 

 - Patrick McCray

Thank you library & archives staff at LACMA’s Library!  
Balch Art Research Library

LACMA Unframed / Balch Library: Before and After

“…the renovated library is now also home to the new 
Art + Technology Lab…
Library displays feature special selections from the archives, hand-picked by the library and archives staff.  Currently, you’ll find fascinating documentation from the original Art and Technology program that ran from 1967 to 1971, including a drawing by artist Rockne Krebs for his laser-beam installation, produced in collaboration with the Hewlett-Packard Corporation.  
Displayed alongside is a letter of recommendation by curator 
Sam Wagstaff on behalf of artist James Lee Byars, playfully hand scrawled in crayon….” April 21, 2014

‘Rockne Krebs is recognized as one of Washington’s finest artists.  Krebs “Of the 38 major pieces I’ve made in the last 10 years, two still exist.  Perhaps I ought to start making still-lifes of flowers.”’  *1

Art International, 1974. Rite de Passage, by Rockne Krebs, 1971.

Rite de Passage, in honor of Mrs. Edgar B. Stern, a gift by the Stern family to the New Orleans Museum of Art. Art International, May 1974 XVIII/5.  Cover photograph: Passage 5 from Rite de Passage, an argon laser work by Rockne Krebs, installed in the portico of the New Orleans Museum in 1971.

“I think of these as pieces which you experience in total but see only in sequence or passages.  The experience is a remembered experience, almost as a piece of music of which you hear the progression.  In this case you see the progression of the piece and your final total experience is one of memory.”  
Rockne Krebs, 1970 *2

 “’Crazy, man!’ is the way young people describe it as the beam dances merrily as it bounces off trees, the waters of the lagoon…” *3

Drawing by Rockne Krebs, Rite de Passage, New Orleans Museum of Art.

The Art Gallery Magazine, November 1971.   Magazine cover, drawing by Rockne Krebs of his piece Rite de Passage at the New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA.   "One of the more spectacular accomplishments to this month’s re-opening of New Orleans’ old Isaac Delgado Museum promises to be a laser beam sculpture by Rockne Krebs.  The artist’s conception of what the work will look like in action appears on our cover.”

“I was disheartened to read Rockne’s 1977 statement, that of the thirty-eight major pieces he had made, only four were still extant.

Rockne’s sobering quote speaks volumes about the temporal nature of all art.  However, there is one piece that certainly exists and has become a touchstone for me.  Miami Line is a signature Krebs light sculpture that stretches for a third of a mile along the under edge of a Metrorail overpass in downtown Miami ….”  *4
William Dunlap, Dec. 2, 2011

“...Krebs’s made one feel extremely happy and proud to be alive at a particular time and place…”  *5

Photo © Neil Johnson | Used with permission

Shreveport/Bossier's Texas Street bridge glows from the neon
lights that were installed in 1994.

Neil Johnson: The Neon Bridge revisited
The Shreveport Times, Apr. 16, 2014

In 1993, Mayor Hazel Beard flipped a switch and the Texas Street
Bridge — officially, the Long-Allen Bridge, built in 1934 — soon became known as The Neon Bridge.

Even though many people questioned its cost and scratched their
heads over all the hoop-la, the goal of Shreveport officials (City Hall,
Downtown Development Authority, and Shreveport Regional Arts Council) was to create a signature piece of public art that would not only help define Shreveport in a creative, strikingly visual, and very public way, but connect Shreveport with its sister city on the other side of the river.

Photo © Neil Johnson | Used with permission. Krebs on The Neon Bridge.

Rockne Krebs (1938-2011), an artist from Washington D.C., well-known for experimenting with laser beams and other light sources as his medium, won the commission to create his vision. Other than the mostly red neon, Krebs also included two huge spotlights aimed straight up from the foot of each side of the bridge and planned for a laser to shoot from the top of the bridge down Texas Street and past the First United Methodist Church steeple.

Despite an engineering struggle, the laser facet of the project
failed in the offset.  Years later, the spotlights would be turned off and finally removed.  The neon remained on, but, sadly, it was discovered that constant vibration and road dust and grime were the enemies of neon fixtures and tubes.  The tubes began to fail and be replaced, but eventually the speed at which the neon failed outstripped the maintenance money to replace them.  Repairing the neon was both very difficult and very inconvenient.

After the bridge succeeded in becoming an artistic icon, today, there is much grumbling about the “non-neon bridge.”  Only a small percentage of it remains lit.

But fans of the art should take heart!

Pam Atchison, SRAC executive director, assured me that, first, everyone is quite aware of the condition of the neon artwork, and secondly, there is ongoing activity below radar to find the money to, not only replace the lights, but replace the neon with a type of LED light that strongly resembles neon and is much more stable.  Though not exactly the same product, check out the “neon” on the Tourist Bureau mural some evening.
 
Atchison said they had been shooting for the end of 2014 for the
neon rehab, but it will probably be in 2015.  With an extremely tight city budget, it’s mostly about finding just the right grant to apply for — and win.

When the next switch is thrown, I will be standing on the riverbank, excited to see the lit bridge again reflected gloriously in the river below.  To the Neon Bridge doubters, I will once again state, “It is a work of art, created by a sculptor using light to transform the bridge. It is not decoration.”

I might also add: Patience.

Neil Johnson is the owner of Neil Johnson Photography and is
based in Shreveport-Bossier City.

The Red River Bridge proposal, Rockne Krebs, 1991. Krebs’ first study and original submission drawing for "The Neon Bridge." © Estate of Rockne Krebs/Licensed by VAGA, NY, NY.

On the back of the drawing: “Red River Dave strumming to sundown on the Red River and contemplating the reflection of the Texas Street Bridge.  Red River Dave was a Texas cowboy singer from the 33 rpm record era.” Rockne Krebs, 9/1991.

Krebs titled his light sculpture on the Texas Street Bridge, The Red River Bridge, it soon became known as The Neon Bridge.

The Red River Bridge, 1993 © Estate of Rockne Krebs/Licensed by VAGA, NY, NY.

A wonderful video of Shreveport/Bossier’s waterfront with
stunning Neon Bridge footage, Dec. 2008.
“Shreveport, Louisiana's Nighttime Waterfront Skyline”
by  TheManTheyCallRon